Inspired by Bonnie

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

May 2017 Newsletter
By Enid Whittaker, CBPM

Dr. Seuss wasn’t referring to books when he wrote this poem but “Oh the Places You’ll Go” when you are a reader.

It is hard to know which was Bonnie’s first love, climbing or books. In any case both offered her an escape from the constant overwhelming stressful emotional climate of family and later the constant overwhelming pressure of work and not so good choices in business partners.

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” Annie Dillard

“I loved to read with my mother. She read the difficult stories to me and the easier ones we sounded out together. When I was sick she would read to me all day.”

The library in Bonnie’s growing up home was very eclectic. It held all the latest novels and her father’s war books. It held classics, biographies, myths, adventures, battles and poetry. It also held her grandfather’s medical books and she especially was drawn to the anatomical ones with pictures.

“Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.” Marc Brown

By the time she was three Bonnie’s mother had taught her to read by having her sound out each word. Once the word was sounded out, she would tell her what it meant. Her adult library card came about when an observant librarian noted not only the numbers of books she read but also what she read…anything and everything.

“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.” Gore Vidal

The first poem she memorized was Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Her father was part Indian and his nickname for her was Mudjekeewis. She cherished the thought that she might have even one drop of that blood in her system. Two of her favorite books as a child were Rolf of the Woods and Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton. Both sit on the bookshelf today, well worn. Another favorite, she says she read it three times, was Over the Top by Guy Empy, a professional soldier in the US Cavalry at the start of World War I.

Robert Oppenheimer was a frequent visitor to her in-laws’ home and soon after lamenting her lack of a college education a box of books arrived. “Here is your college education, Love Robert.” Among the books were Mathematics for the Million by Lancelot Hogben and Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow.

If you read the books Bonnie authored you see evidence of her wide range of knowledge in her choice of words, reference to education, history, art, psychology, medicine, academic studies and use of foreign words.

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” Francois Rabelais

Books were her friends. They carried adventures, ideas, new cultures and their peoples. Those she read were heavily underlined and notated throughout along with a comment regarding the book once completed.

Bonnie’s own library housed 1000s of books. The local bookstore owners in the Berkshires loved to see her coming. A book gift was sure to be appreciated. Authors usually have access to the publisher’s library where multiple copies of other authors by the same publisher are housed. A trip into NY for an editing meeting ended with an armful of treasure. Book tours also offered an opportunity to add to the collection since most city tours included book signings at the end of a busy media day.

When we moved to Tucson and the space wouldn’t hold all that we had brought someone suggested that we just throw all the old ones away. WHAT!!!??? Getting rid of the “old ones” would mean getting rid of half of the history of education, philosophy, medicine, sex, religion, women, art, music, fitness and on and on….

The problem was solved by turning the two-car garage into a library and writing room, lining every other room with shelves and donating a few hundred dispensable paperbacks to Friends of the Library.

Happiness for Bonnie was books and dogs (Beggar and Blue) and blue Flair pens and a mountain view.

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